The same build with 400GB HDD (Samsung HM400LI) for system instead of Kingston SSD starts up under 46 seconds – that’s cool for office work on low-cost PC’s, but I don’t recommend HDD for HTPC use as it ruins the quietness of the PC.

Temperatures

Disassembling a heatsink was the first thing I have done. I found out that embedded 6cm fan is very inefficient – it has too small impact on temperatures…and I don’t rate the noise of the fan. When no fan mounted the temperatures are great, it’s close to possibility of complete passive cooling. But it’s still not perfect, the stock heatsink needs to be replaced for bigger one first. The system is stable even on extreme 99°C, but as you can see in AMD E-350’s datasheet, the maximum temperature is 85°C, so I attached a silent 800RPM Scythe KAZE-JYUNI Slim SL fan and lowered RPM’s to ~500.
All the values are measured with case cover installed. Btw, the temperatures are changing very quickly according to current APU load, increasing temp of 5 degrees in a few seconds is very common.

I wonder if it would be better to fix the fan speed, the results could be more accurate, but my setting reflects real conditions better.

Power consumption

Running win7, idle

16 Watts

XBMC main screen

20 Watts

XBMC screensaver

17 Watts

40Mbit 1080p playback, GPU acceleration enabled

21 Watts

100% CPU load

26 Watt

Sleep mode

??

Mods & other thoughts

Great EFI with legacy BIOS-like UI
PWM adjustment, target temperature

POST screen take only 2 seconds (vs. 15sec on my desktop)

You can turn off LED blinking when PC is in sleep mode! The other option is „dual LED“. As my Akasa case doesn’t include dual polarity LED diode, I tweaked it and added red LED close to the present blue one. Now my HTPC shines red when in sleep, and blue when on.

UPDATE: I built a completely new htpc on a competitive platform, Intel Atom + nVidia ION2, but have no time to install an OS and review it these days :(

I did completely clean install onto 400GB legacy HDD, with ACHI enabled, and latest EFI BIOS (v1.5). I installed Windows 7 SP1 64bit from genuine Win7 SP1 DVD, installed all the updates and drivers from MSI site. The sleep button in Start menu was grayed out until I installed AMD Hudson M1 VGA Driver, then I was able to hit Start-Sleep. The screen turns black, power LED starts to blink as normal, but it is not possible to wake it, it always boots from cold. :|
(I have turned Hybrid Sleep in the Power options off)

Can I ask what SW do you use to measure the temperature? Judging from another forum, you’re running Windows (as your question regarding non-functional waking mentioned it) – if it’s Speedfan, it reports 2 values for Zacate: CPU & let’s say „inside case“, wherever it is; while e.g. Aida64 reports 5 values, 2 of them (named „board“ & „CPU“) correspond (= values are the same) to Speedfan’s & 3 other being „1st core“, „2nd core“ & GPU. Point is – those 3 additional values are different (even from each other sometimes, even if not much) far higher than „CPU“ in Speedfan.
I’m talking from my experience with Asus E35M1-M PRO, so this may not align with your system properties entirely, I’d like to know your experience however. Thanks.Reagovat

babča
na 14.5.2011 v 18:55

I’ve used HWMonitor, you can open screenshots from Temperatures table, there are links in Task column :-)Reagovat

Martin
na 15.5.2011 v 11:59

I’ve tried that also, yesterday btw. Reports incorrect values = values reported do not correspond either to Speedfan nor to Aida64 (which can probably be taken as a reference). Higher (by a small margin) values.
PS: seems like your screenshots are gone..Reagovat

Hi!
How can you get 2sec bios post screen? I have the same MB, bios v1.5. But the post is much longer…Reagovat

babča
na 26.7.2011 v 10:25

Is your system SSD only? Maybe your HDD needs to spin up its platters first.Reagovat

Anatoly
na 8.8.2011 v 8:49

That was PS/2 keyboard… Changed to USB and now the post takes 2sec! :)
Now I have 5sec black screen before post. My suggestion that is time for spinning HDD or for initialize video through HDMI.Reagovat

babča
na 5.9.2011 v 12:19

babča (may 2011) napsal:

I can’t get sleep mode to work. Any suggestions?

The screen turns black, power LED starts to blink as normal, but it is not possible to wake it, it always boots from cold.

Finally I got this to work! The Kingston HyperX RAM modules pictured in the case are 1600Mhz ones, but AMD Brazos platform officially supports max. 1066Mhz frequency. When I looked at a RAM setting in BIOS, it said 1333Mhz (BIOS choosed this automatically). I decreased the value to 1066 and voila! Sleep mode works like a charm:)))
Sooo simple and this took me a few months to figure out… *04*Reagovat